Generally, a navigation device has a surrounding facility searching function of searching for facilities in an area surrounding the vehicle position (the current position). This surrounding facility searching function is the one of searching for facilities which meet a search condition specified by the user, and which exist in an area surrounding the vehicle position and located at a predetermined distance or less from the vehicle position from a map database, though a problem is that when the vehicle position is on a road, such as a highway, which vehicles can enter and exit only via entrances and exits for exclusive use (referred to as a “dedicated road” from here on), the surrounding facility searching function may present a facility which is close to the vehicle position with respect to distance, but is far from the vehicle position with respect to time, such a facility which the vehicle cannot reach unless it exits the dedicated road from an exit of the dedicated road, to the user.
In order to solve this problem, patent reference 1 discloses a car navigation device that has a surrounding facility searching function and that can use the surrounding facility searching function effectively even in a case in which the vehicle is traveling along a dedicated road. In this car navigation device, when carrying out a surrounding facility search, a control circuit causes the user to specify a search condition for searching for facilities, and searches for (extracts) facilities meeting the search condition and existing within a predetermined search area surrounding the vehicle position (e.g., within an area having a radius of 10 km), lists them to display them on a display unit, and displays them using landmarks on a road map. At this time, the control circuit determines whether the current position of the vehicle is on a local street or a dedicated road, and, when the current position of the vehicle is on a dedicated road, sets an area surrounding an exit of the dedicated road as the search area in which surrounding facilities are to be searched for. When there are two or more exits, the control circuit causes the user to select the next exit or one of the other exits. Furthermore, during route guidance, the control circuit causes the user to select the next exit or an exit of the dedicated road on the guidance route.